a) Field of Invention
The invention concerns a cassette loading facility for a cassette device for the recording and/or reproduction of information.
Such a cassette loading facility can be used with any audio and video device in which a storage medium for the recording and/or reproduction of information, such as a magnetic tape, magnetic disk or similar, is inserted in a cassette.
b) Description of the Prior Art
With a commercially available video recorder, for example, such a cassette loading facility essentially consists of a guide frame mounted on the drive chassis in a fixed position and a driveable cassette receiving facility which is guided in the guide frame in such a way that it can be moved between a cassette loading position and a cassette operating position. In the loading position the cassette can be inserted into or removed from the receiving facility. In the operating position the tape winding, or rather the two reel hubs of a cassette, engage with the driveable winding spindles of the drive chassis. The reel hubs are mounted in the cassette so that they may move. For the purpose of positioning the cassette relative to the plane of the chassis, catch apertures are built into the drive side of said cassette which are brought into engagement with corresponding positioning pins located on the chassis.
With such a recorder in which a cassette, for example, can be inserted through a corresponding opening in the front of the housing for the device or removed therefrom after completion of a recording, playback or rewinding operation, the loading procedure is characterized essentially by a movement of the cassette receiving facility parallel (horizontal) to the drive chassis as well as a movement perpendicular to the drive chassis. In doing this, the cassette located in the receiving facility is normally held frictionally engaged with the help of leaf springs mounted on the receiving facility. However, there is a disadvantage connected with this in that owing to the high frictional engagement forces required for holding the cassette, relatively high manual forces must be exerted in order to insert the cassette into the receiving facility or to draw it out from this. Apart from that, a precise positioning of the cassette within the receiving facility during the loading procedure is not guaranteed by the frictional engagement so that an additional orientation with the positioning pins is necessary.
A cassette loading facility is known from the patent specification DE 37 07 830 in which, to avoid the above disadvantages, the cassette receiving facility has an arresting device with a catch block which, upon feeding in a cassette, clips into a recess in the cassette in a form-fit manner so that the cassette is arrested during the entire loading procedure. The recess in the cassette is formed in the housing side of such a cassette which faces away from the drive. However, this arresting device is only applicable under certain conditions because the cassettes of other system standards, for example, the VHS standard, do not have such a recess on the side facing away from the drive.